


Top of the Food Chain

by Katzedecimal



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Christmas, Christmas Dinner, Gen, Gift Fic, I didn't make any of this up, I'm so sorry., gross food, people really eat this stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:42:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katzedecimal/pseuds/Katzedecimal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"You can imagine the Christmas dinners." </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"Oh yeah... <b>Oh no!</b>"</i>
</p>
<p>John knew that Sherlock could be a handful at Christmas -- No one ever warned him about <i>Mycroft.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Top of the Food Chain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [joudama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joudama/gifts).



> Inspired by a comments exchange and a couple of ideas I just could **not** get out of my head *sob!*

Pleasant holiday afternoons should be passed with enjoyably annoying flatmates. Holiday suppers should be spent in amicable bickering and kidding around, talking over past and future cases and indulging in a bit of 'Who's Anderson Shagging This Week?' followed by a few rounds of 'Cases Which Prove Why Everything Anderson Says Is Wrong.' Big brothers should not enter into the picture anywhere. John realised that this left himself out, but he'd be quite happy about that if it meant he didn't have to go through with what was **certain** to be a fiasco. ~~Housekeepers~~ Landladies should figure in only as people to be dropped in on and given a little gift of chocolates and a bit of chit-chat, thirty minutes tops. They should not be instigators. Little sisters _definitely_ should not be involved, and they _definitely_ shouldn't be insisting on the meeting "because we're all family now."

Ugh. 

What was worse was that big brothers should be the ones putting their feet firmly down and saying _NO, this is a disaster in the making, we will not go through with this, it will only end in tears._ John knew this. John was a big brother, he definitely knew this. Sadly, he was also Mrs. Hudson's tenant and knew how her chin drooped when she was disappointed. So he'd rather been counting on Mycroft, as the Big Brother of Big Brothers, to do the job for him. Mycroft was the Ice Man. Mycroft loathed sentimentality and family get-togethers. He definitely wasn't fond of his only remaining family, so this should have been easy for him.

Lord only knew why Mycroft hadn't. Actually, when John thought about it, he remembered the incident where he and Sherlock had jumped on Mycroft for making a disaparaging comment towards Mrs. Hudson. Hm. If that was the case, they'd brought this on themselves (although it had been worth it to see Mycroft's face.) 

Which meant they were all now seated around Mrs. Hudson's table while she served up the goose. In awkward silence, because - as everyone knew - small talk was not the Holmes Brothers' area. This suited John just fine: The less talk, the less chance of deductive disasters. 

Later he would realise, nobody ever warned him about _Mycroft._

It was Harry's fault, John would later decide. She was the one who had decided to open the floor by commenting on Mrs. Hudson's goose, leading into a brief little conversation about holiday dinner traditions around the world. "And the Americans do ham and turkey, I understand," she had said, then - ever so pleasantly, ever so naively - had turned to Mycroft and said, "But you must be quite well travelled, Mycroft? You must have sampled quite a few local cuisines?"

She didn't notice Sherlock shaking his head silently. Only John recognised Sherlock's microexpression as anxiety. John opened his mouth to change the subject but he was just a split second too late. Mycroft had smiled pleasantly and said, "Oh yes, indeed, Ms. Watson, quite a few."

"Don't get him started, he'll get fat just thinking about it," Sherlock muttered in what John later realised was a desperate attempt to head off the inevitable.

Harry gave him a righteously nasty look and smiled at Mycroft again, then spoke the fatal words, "What would you say is the most unusual food you've tried?"

Sherlock was pushing his food around his plate with his fork and looking... John wasn't sure how to interpret that microexpression, but it wasn't good. That, John realised later, was when he should have just grabbed Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson and made a run for it. Because Mycroft replied, and it all went south after that. 

"It's hard to say," Mycroft had said, "It really depends on what one deems to be 'unusual.' If one is speaking visually, then certainly monjayaki would qualify. It quite literally looks like someone threw up on the grill and fried it." 

Mrs. Hudson's fork clattered onto her plate. 

"It's tasty, however, as long as you don't look at it," Mycroft continued, "But I still prefer okonomiyaki, which doesn't look quiiiite so much like fried emesis, although it does have an ingredient that looks rather like human ejaculate, so it's best not to watch while the batter is being assembled."

John let his head fall back and looked at the ceiling, then glanced at Sherlock, who was still staring at his plate. Sherlock glanced up at him with a little shrug. 

"Of course, the Japanese do have quite a number of dishes that would be considered unusual by British tastes," Mycroft went on, "Natto, for instance, that's a dish of soy beans cultured with a slime mould, which renders them very slimy and sticky, you dish them out and great long strings come away with it, rather like mozzarella only slimy. It's often eaten for breakfast."

"Ah, how.... how interesting," Mrs. Hudson quavered. 

"Oh the Japanese do some very interesting things with food. I remember one state dinner I was at, they served us a dish of Dancing Shrimp!"

"Oh, that sounds lovely," said Harry the Innocent, completely ignoring Sherlock's frantic headshake, "What is it?"

"The shrimp are brought to you in a covered dish, accompanied by a flask of sake. Then they lift the cover, pour the sake over the shrimp, and the shrimp hop about as they get intoxicated. They're quite lively, however, one has to be quick or they can hop right off the platter!" Mycroft laughed, "That was rather embarrassing, having to chase my tea. Certainly brings out one's hunter-gatherer instincts."

John did a great 'flat what'; Harry did a great flat "They were still alive."

"Oh yes," Mycroft said cheerfully, "That's how you eat them. The flesh is quite succulent, almost sweet..."

"You tortured a shrimp and ate it while it was still alive."

_Oh my god! OH god, here we go!_ John thought. Sherlock leaned over his plate and looked at him, "Are you starting to understand?"

"Unfortunately, Ms. Watson, in my role, one does not have the luxury of turning down what is offered at state functions," said Mycroft, "The unofficial rule is 'don't question it, just shut up and eat.'" 

John put down his fork and looked at him, "What _else_ have you eaten?"

"No don't ask him that," Sherlock said quickly.

"Let's see, crickets, rattlesnake, chocolate dipped grasshoppers, wichetty grubs which taste just like pork so if you close your eyes and don't think about the texture..."

"Do you see now, why I say he's the most dangerous man in Britain?" Sherlock snapped, "He is literally at the top of the food chain."

"I'm also seeing why you don't eat much."

"...although I may have hit a limit with the roasted tarantulas."

"... please stop talking..." Mrs. Hudson had her head in her hands. 

John just couldn't resist goading, "You'd eat Cthulhu, wouldn't you."

"Please, John," Mycroft scoffed, "You're talking to a man who's eaten roasted grub on a stick, chitterlings, and dog. Hideous beast of legend? Pfft, batter fry it and pass me my chopsticks."

Harry just stared at him for several seconds, "You ate a dog."

Sherlock fixed his brother with a glare and said, "How's your diet going?"

"Better since relations with Korea have become strained and I no longer get invited 'round for sannakji." Which meant that Mycroft was now enjoying this.

"....i don't want to know what that is." Poor Mrs. Hudson. 

"Oh, it's octopus," Mycroft supplied before Sherlock could stop him, "Cut into small pieces and dressed with sesame oil. Quite delicious but challenging to eat, it tries to crawl out of your mouth."

"It's still alive." Harry's tone and her supper had gone completely cold, "You dismember it and eat it alive."

"There was one memorable dinner where we were served Yin-Yang fish, shortly before it was banned."

"Banned." You could have made ice cream with Harry's tone.

"Oh yes -- too cruel. The dish consists of live fish, partially batter-fried. That is to say, only the flesh of the fish is sliced, battered and fried; the head and tail are kept out of the oil, so the finished dish is served still twitching and gasping. Rather unnerving." Sherlock and John knew that meant Mycroft had been horrified; Harry and Mrs. Hudson didn't. 

John passed a hand over his face. "I can't imagine anything that could top that." 

An awkward silence descended. After a few moments, Mycroft finally snapped, "Oh just _spit it out_ , Sherlock, for God's sake!"

Sherlock scowled deeper so John took the cue instead. "What?"

"He does this every time, he sits there **radiating** 'I can top that.'"

John, who was quite familiar with the Sherlockian radiation in question and hadn't noticed any, glanced at Sherlock - nope, still no topping radiation. "Are you sure?" Another glance. "Because to me, he seems to be radiating 'I don't want to talk about it.'"

"I **_don't_** want to talk about it," Sherlock confirmed. 

"And why not?" Mycroft sneered, "What could you _possibly_ have eaten that could out-do Yin-Yang fish, Sherlock?" Abruptly the smirk vanished, "Oh you _didn't._ "

"It wasn't intentional!"

"I didn't think even _you_ would go **that** far!"

" **Not intentional!** Hello, what part of 'not intentional' did you not understand?!"

Mrs. Hudson looked puzzled, then got it at about the same time as John did. "Oh _God!_ Sherlock!" he cried, "It's bad enough you bring the bits home to experiment on..."

_"It wasn't like that!!"_ Sherlock hollared, waving his hands frantically, "Look, Jefferson O'Grady!"

John frowned, "Jefferson O'Grady, who's Jefferson..."

"The Sweeney Todd Killer?" Harry supplied.

Sherlock nodded, "It was one of the first cases Lestrade asked for my help on. We knew he was killing them, we couldn't figure out how he was disposing of the bodies. DS Murphy brought sausages around, from the delicatessen that the Yard frequented at the time. O'Grady was a butcher. He made sausages. We traced his client list and found out he supplied the delicatessen. That was when we worked out what was in the sausages. We sent them for testing and they came back positive. I had two. I never ate during a case again."

The stunned silence was broken only by the sound of Harry trying not to make monjayaki. She shoved her chair away from the table and ran. ".....You win," Mycroft said. John pinched the bridge of his nose and started to giggle. Then Mycroft turned a rather gentler look on his little brother, "You never told me that."

"I didn't want you trying to match it!"

"No, I'm afraid I have to concede the title to you."

"I never wanted it in the first place!"

Another silence descended. Harry staggered back in and Mrs. Hudson cleared her throat, "I'll... just go check that pudding...."

"If you don't mind, Mrs. H, I'll have some of that fruit cake?"

Mycroft **stared** at John, "You what?" He turned to stare in disbelief at Sherlock, who nodded.

They watched in fascinated horror as John, quite calmly, sawed off a slice of the ridiculously dense loaf, pried off a bit with a fork, put it in his mouth and chewed it. "What?"

"You actually **eat** that?"

John looked at Harry, then Sherlock, with a grin, "This is coming from the man who's tucked into roasted witchetty."

Sherlock and Mycroft glanced at each other then chorused, "He wins."


End file.
